A mother's love, led Mrs. Blake to suffer the agonies of freezing to death, that her "little one," -"Peeping out Into the mingled storm," night continue to breathe the air of heaven. 119. EXTRACT FROM THE CHARGE PRECEDING THE SENTENCE OF THE COURT IN THE CASE OF THE THREE THAYERS.-Hon. R. Hyde Walworth. 1. The feelings and emotions with which I enter upon the discharge of the solemn and important duty, which devolves upon the court, and which I am now about to perform, are too painful to be expressed. To pronounce the dreadful sentence, which is to cut a fellow mortal off from society,-to deprive him of existence, and to send him to the bar of his Creator and his God, where his destiny must be fixed for eternity, is, at all times, and under any circumstances, most painful to the court. But to be compelled at one and the same time, to consign to the gallows three young men who have just arrived at manhood, standing in the relation to each other of brothers, and connected with society in the tender relations of children, brothers, husbands, and fathers, presses upon my feelings with a weight, which I can neither resist nor express. 2. From the testimony which was given on the trials of your several cases, there is no room to doubt the certainty of your guilt, or the aggravating circumstances attending the perpetration of the bloody deed. The man whom you have murdered was your companion and your friend. He had loaned you money to relieve your necessities, and to support your families. He was the lenient creditor, renewing and exchanging his judgments and his executions from time to time, to prevent the sacrifice of your property. He was the lodger of your father, and frequently enjoyed the hospitalities of your own roofs. In the unsuspecting hour of private confi dence, you decoyed him to the retired dwelling of Israel Thayer, junior, and there, while enjoying the hospitality of the social fire-side, you stole upon him unperceived, you aimed the deadly rifle at his head, and with the fatal axe you mangled and murdered your victim; mingling his blood with that of your butchered swine. But your guilt and depravity did not stop here. Scarcely had you committed his lifeless corpse to its shallow grave, before you began to collect and to riot upon the spoils of his property. To the crime of murder, you added those of theft, fraud, and forgery, and repeatedly imprecated the vengeance of Heaven upon your perjured souls. 3. Wretched and deluded men! In vain was the foul deed perpetrated under cover of the darkness of the night; in vain was the mangled body of your murdered companion committed to the earth, and the lonely grave concealed by rubbish; in vain was the little boy sent home to his mother, and the unsuspecting wife removed from her house that no human eye should be near to witness the foul and unnatural murder; in vain did you expect the snows of winter to conceal the grave until the body of your victim could be no longer known and recognized. 4. You forgot that the eye of your God was fixed upon you; the eye of that God who suffers not even a sparrow to fall without his notice. You forgot that you was in the presence of Him to whom the light of day, and the darkness of night are the same; that He witnessed all your movements; that He could withhold the accustomed snows from falling on the earth, or His breath could melt them when fallen, leaving the grave uncovered, and thus exposing you to detection and condemnation. His vengeance has at length overtaken you. 5. The sword of human justice trembles over you, and is about to fall upon your guilty heads; you are about to take your final leave of this world, and to enter upon the untried retributions of a never-ending eternity. And I beg of you not to delude yourselves with vain hopes of pardon, which never can be realized. Your destiny for this world is fixed, and your fate is inevitable. Let me therefore entreat you, individually and collectively, by every motive, temporal and eternal, to reflect upon your present situation, and the certain death that shortly awaits you. There is but One, who can pardon your offences; there is a Savior whose blood is sufficient to wash from your souls the guilty stains even of a thousand murders. Let me therefore entreat you to fly to Him for that mercy, and that pardon, which you must not expect from mortals. 6. When you shall have returned to the solitude of your prison, where you will be permitted to remain for a few short weeks, let me entreat you by all that is still dear to you in time, by all that is dreadful in the retributions of eternity, that you seriously reflect upon your present situation, and upon the conduct of your past lives. Bring to your minds all the aggravated horrors of that dreadful night, when the soul of the murdered Love was sent unprepared into the presence of its God; where you must shortly meet it as an accusing spirit against you. Bring to your recollections the mortal struggles, and dying groans of your murdered friend. Recollect the horror which seized upon you, while you dragged his mangled remains to the place of concealment ! 7. Think of the situation of your aged father, to whom you are indebted for your existence. Think of the grief of your distracted and disconsolate mother, who has nursed you in the lap of affection, and watched over the tender years of your infancy; who must now go down to the grave, sorrowing over the ruins of her family. Think of the dreadful agonies,— think of the unnatural and desolate widowhood, to which you reduced the unfortunate partners of your beds and of your bosoms. Think upon the situation of your poor orphan children, on whom you have entailed everlasting disgrace and infamy; and who are now to be left fatherless and unprotected to the mercy of the world. 8. And when by such reflections as these, your hard and obdurate hearts shall become softened, let me again entreat you before your blood-stained hands are raised in unavailing supplication before the judgment seat of Christ, that you fly for mercy to the arms of a Savior, and endeavor to seize upon the salvation of His cross. Listen now to the dreadful sentence of the law; and then farewell, until the court and you, with all this assembled audience, shall meet together in the general resurrection. And may that God whose laws you have broken, and before whose dread tribunal you must in a few days appear, have mercy on your souls. On the 25th day of April, 1825, at Buffalo, Judge Walworth, the present chancellor, delivered the charge, from which this extract is taken, previous to passing sentence upon the three brothers, Nelson Thayer, Israel Thayer, jun. and Isaac Thayer, all of whom, had been indicted by the grand jury of the county of Erie, and pronounced, by petit juries of that county, guilty of the "foul and aggravated murder" of John Love, in the town of Boston, December 15th, 1824. In pursuance of their conviction, and in obedience "to the dreadful sentence of the law," they were all executed; i. e. in the language of the court, "hanged by the neck until they were dead," on the 17th day of June, 1825. 120. PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.-Samuel N. Sweet. 1. GEORGE WASHINGTON was born February 22d, 1732. He lived at Mount Vernon, Fairfax county, Virginia. At the early age of 19 he was appointed adjutant general of his native state. In 1775, he was appointed, by the first continental congress, commander in chief of the American army, and he performed the duties of that office without any pecuniary reward! The colonial settlers numbered only 3,000,000 of men, England 40,000,000; but notwithstanding this great difference in numerical strength, at the expiration of seven years, passed -"in the tented field;" upon the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, in 1781, at Yorktown, the English government acknowledged the independence and sovereignty of the United States. Neither Britons, nor Indians, nor traitors, nor all combined, could prevail against the widow's son from the woods of Virginia. General Washington was elected president of the United States in 1789, at the age of 57 years. In 1793, the electors of the states, notwithstanding his strong desire to retire from the cares of public life, again unanimously elected him chief magistrate of the union. He died at Mount Vernon, Virginia, December 14, 1799, at half past eleven o'clock, Saturday night, at the age of 67 years, 9 months, and 22 days. 2. JOHN ADAMS was born October 19, 1735. He lived at Quincy, Norfolk county, Massachusetts; was vice president of the United States during both terms of Washington's administration; was elected to the presidential office in 1797, at the age of 62, and died July 4, 1826, at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, aged 90 years, 10 months, and fifteen days. 3. THOMAS JEFFERSON was born in the county of Chesterfield, April 2, 1743. He lived at Monticello, Albemarle county, Virginia; was secretary of state in Washington's cabinet; was elected vice president of the United States in 1797; the house of representatives, voting by states, chose and elected him to the presidency in 1801, at the age of 58 years, for four years, his term of office commencing on the 4th of March. Sixty-five electors for president, voted in favor of Mr. Adams's reëlection to that office; Mr. Jefferson and Aaron Burr haà each seventy-three votes. Under these circumstances the constitution required the house to decide between the two gentlemen, having an equal number of votes. The unsuc cessful candidate, Mr. Burr, was elected to the vice presidency. In 1804, the vice president killed General Hamilton in a duel. In 1805, Mr. Jefferson was re-chosen president of the United States, and George Clinton of New-York was elected vice president. President Jefferson died July 4, 1826, at one o'clock in the afternoon, on the same day, and five hours before President Adams died, at the age of 83 years, 3 months, and two days. : 4. JAMES MADISON was born in 1756. He lived at Montpelier, Orange county, Virginia, was elected president of the United States in 1809, at the age of fifty-three years. June 4, 1812, a bill was passed by congress, declaring war against Great Britain, which received President Madison's signature. The emperor of Russia offering to meditate between Great Britain and America, Messrs. Albert Gallatin, James A. Bayard, and John Quincy Adams were appointed commissioners to Russia in 1813, and they met those sent by the British nation at Ghent, where they signed a treaty of peace, December 24, 1814. The treaty was ratified by the president and senate, February 17. Mr. Madison was reelected president of the United States in 1813. De Witt Clinton of New-York was the opposing candidate. George Clinton died, and Elbridge Gerry succeeded him, as vice president. 5. JAMES MONROE was born in 1758. He lived in Loudon county, Virginia; was elected president of the United States in 1817, at the age of 59. Daniel D. Tompkins was elected vice president. Mr. Monroe was almost unanimously reelected to the presdidency in 1821. Mr. Tompkins was reelected vice president. The second session of the 16th congress closed March 3, and on the 5th Mr. Monroe took the usual oath of office. He died at the house of his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. Governeur in New-York, July 4, 1831, at the age of 73. This is the third American president who has died on the day |